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Updated: May 31, 2025
It was Snowball to a certainty! A general shout proclaimed the recognition; and for some moments the air was rent with the voices of his ci-devant comrades calling upon the Coromantee to "come to an anchor." "Lie to, Snowball!" cried several of his old comrades. "Why have you cut your cable in that fashion? Hold on till we come up. We mean you no harm!"
There the Coromantee, by great courage and cunning, had succeeded not only in keeping himself and his protege afloat, but in establishing a chance for sustaining existence, calculated to last for some days.
The plunge which Snowball had made as he sprang out into the water had caused the zygaena to swerve from its course; and for some moments it swam towards him, as if determined upon changing the object of its attack; but whether not liking the looks of the Coromantee or frayed by his bold attitude in making directly towards it, it shied back into its former course, and kept on towards the others.
For several minutes they seemed hours to all did the struggle continue between man and Catamaran, without any very great advantage in favour of either. It is true some change had taken place in the relative positions of the parties. The Coromantee, at starting in pursuit of the raft, had been some fathoms in the wake of Ben Brace and his protege.
Whether the creature intended to pursue his original plan of attacking the sailor and his charge, or whether he was manoeuvring to turn the Coromantee, it mattered not. In either case Snowball was pursuing the correct strategy. He knew that if his supple antagonist could once get round to his rear, his chances of safety for himself or the others would be sadly diminished.
Under this belief, men of a despairing turn of mind would have ceased to exert themselves, and yielded to a fate that appeared almost certain to ensue. But neither the English sailor nor the Coromantee sea-cook were individuals of the yielding kind.
Despite that absence of that superior intellect, which flippant gossips of so-called a "Social Science" delight in denying to his race, themselves often less gifted than he, Snowball was endowed with rare ingenuity, especially in matters relating to the cuisine, and in less than ten minutes after the question of a cooking-stove had been started, the Coromantee conceived the idea of one that might have vied with any of the various "patents" so loudly extolled by the ironmongers, and yet not so effective when submitted to the test.
"Now, Pearl, my darling, shout to them in Coromantee shout;" and forthwith the black quartermaster sung out, "Coromantee Sheik Cocoloo, kockemony populorum fiz;" which, as I afterwards learned, being interpreted, is, "Behold the Sultan Cocoloo, the great ostrich, with a feather in his tail like a palm branch; fight for him, you sons of female dogs."
Ben only waited for the return of his breath; and as soon as that was fairly restored to him, he once more set about the design that had caused him for the second time to climb upon the back of the cachalot. Taking the harpoon from the hands of the Coromantee, who still kept clutching it, as if there was danger in letting it go, the sailor proceeded to draw up the drogue.
The plot was brewed by some Coromantee and Paw Paw negroes who had procured the services of a conjuror to make them invulnerable; and it may have been joined by several Spanish or Portuguese Indians or mestizoes who had been captured at sea and unwarrantably, as they contended, reduced to slavery.
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